


Rooted Lightning

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:25:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1633847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Briar comes to Lightsbridge; some growing is done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rooted Lightning

**Author's Note:**

> Written for que_sera

 

 

"It is hard to stay undercover as a fully fledged mage when you show up and nearly _out_ me," Tris hisses. Briar looks sheepish; his tattoos wither into shy vines that hopefully bud tiny blooms at her, and she sighs. "Fine, what do you want?"

"I can't just visit a mate?" Briar tries for charming, is successful, but not nearly enough so to overcome Tris' learned immunity. Years spent in close proximity (closer than close, sometimes, mind to mind and magic to magic) had rendered her mostly inured to his wide eyed ways. Briar sighs. "I need your help."

"Right, of course," she huffs. "What is it?"

Briar holds a handful of seeds and says, "I need you to help me grow these."

:::

Tris is Letrissa Sedler, fourth daughter of Merchant House Sedler, and the highest academically ranked student at Lightsbridge. She would be highest ranked overall if she could trust herself to let go of her tight control and show some of the power she has wrapped up in her braids, in her bones and breath and blood. For all her pride, she has learned wisdom enough not to flaunt this power. 

As the highest ranked academic student, she has certain privileges such as a suite of rooms in which to entertain infamous Plant Mages such as Briar Moss, who saunters about cocky as a tomcat, strutting and seducing all the available (and some not so available) females who happen to cross his path. Tris has laid down the law: Briar must never, ever, on the threat of loss of manhood, consummate any of these trysts within her rooms. Especially not on her bed. 

Briar takes this as a challenge to be creative, but so long as her sheets remain inviolate, Tris turns a blind eye.

Meanwhile, all of Lightsbridge gossips. Tris turns a blind eye to that, too. 

:::

The seeds Briar has brought her require regular zaps of lightning to grow. Really, just electricity, and if Briar had thought to write her she could have written back instructions to construct a device to do the zapping for her. But Briar's already there, and it's just as easy to do it herself (easier, in fact, it means she doesn't have to draw out all those tedious diagrams), and - she doesn't want to admit it, but she has been lonely living a lie. A necessary one, perhaps, but - lonely nevertheless. When questioned how she knows _the_ Briar Moss, Tris shrugs and vaguely mentions an association at Winding Circle, which is enough to deter most. 

The seeds take three weeks to grow into white stalks, pure white, which should have been sickly looking but instead was - oddly reminiscent of the lightning she still regularly fed into the dirt hugging its roots. Gradually, buds appear. They start out the same bizarre lightning white and darken to yellow, electric yellow, the yellow of starfire seen from a great distance. 

One morning the buds unfurl petals of deepest darkest most perfect blue and exhale a sent like ozone into Tris' rooms. "They're done," Briar says, satisfied, and strokes the soft petals with his fond fingertips. 

"Done?" Tris is transfixed. The colour is so _blue_. 

"Here," Briar says, at the same time as he says _Here_ , reaches for her hand as he reaches for her mind, twines his magic around hers and gently guides it into a thread curling about the flowering plant before them. Their combined magic sinks into the roots of the plant, and Tris senses - incredibly tight knots, turned and curled into mobius loop, organic yet sharp with the taste of wind and wildness. Tris' breath catches. 

"The roots," she whispers, and feels Briar's pleased nod. 

"I saw it in the East," he says. "Difficult to grow, but worth it. You can store storms' worth of energy in that root, you just have to dig it out and leave it to the air for a while." He beams at her, and she beams back, knows that this was all a gift, a surprise - more than Briar had intended, probably, his presence alone worth all the extra social burden she'd had to bear as object of gossip. Having _family_ around again - having _home_. 

He rides out of Lightsbridge the next noon, leaving behind a swathe of broken hearts. He turns around for one last wave goodbye, gaze falling unerringly to Tris' windows - smiles broadly at the flowers on the sills, bluer than the bluest eye. 

Later, Tris will dig up knotted roots. Now, she touches soft petals and feels content. 

 


End file.
